Star Wars 1313 may not be completely dead after all

Star Wars 1313 looked like it might be one of the better games set in a galaxy far, far away, largely because it followed the formula established by the Knights of the Old Republic series. It had the name, and it sprinkled in a few of the franchise's most famous elements, but other than that it really wasn't Star Wars at all. An M-rated shooter about hunting the worst criminal scum in the galaxy through the subterranean tunnels beneath a loud, smoky, sci-fi super-dystopia? That's a pretty far cry from "Use the Force, Luke."

Unfortunately, the wheels came off when Disney acquired Lucasfilm in late 2012, and shuttered LucasArts a few months thereafter. The Star Wars 1313 trademark application expired at the end of 2013 and, as the USPTO indicates, it, and the game, now stand abandoned.

But hope is not lost! In an interview with Slashfilm, Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy made mention of the huge archive of unrealized Star Wars-related material that Disney "would very much like to explore," including Star Wars 1313. "Our attitude is, we don’t want to throw any of that stuff away. It’s gold. And it’s something we’re spending a lot of time looking at, poring through, discussing, and we may very well develop those things further," she said. "We definitely want to."

To be clear, "We're not throwing anything away" is a long way from announcing that development will resume on Monday. But for those who continue to hope that 1313 will eventually see the light of day (and I'm definitely part of that crowd), it's undeniably encouraging—not just because it maybe, might, cross-your-fingers mean that it could happen someday, but because the top banana at Lucasfilm knows it by name and specifically mentioned it in an interview about something entirely different. That's front-of-mind stuff, and kind of exciting.